Peter Simpson provides some interesting commentary on the upcoming budget (Short-term stimulus will just repeat errors of the past - Globe & Mail Sat. Jan 24, 2009). He suggests that if Bank of Canada projections are correct, then Canadian governments are about to make a series of mistakes.
Commenting on infrastructure funding he notes that money for these projects (even "shovel ready ones) cannot really start flowing until mid-2009. He is particularly scathing about "shovel ready" projects on the City of Ottawa's wish list because they are largely of the wrong kind. Most of Ottawa's big ticket items are road enlargements and paving projects in the suburbs - exactly the wrong kind for an urban area that needs to intensify growth in the inner city and build even one rapid transit system.
"Not all municipalities, thank heaven, are as lacking in imagination" he opines. Still, too many of the municipal projects are either the wrong kind or will inject additional spending into the economy at the wrong time.
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